Rats eating candy asses and the lives of Western ranchers: this week's two recommended art openings both feature video installations, but otherwise couldn't be more different. See what all the fuss is about by attending one of these art show openings in person — or maybe even both.
Brandon Engstrom and Kevin
Duet
3526 Washington Ave. | www.duetstl.com
Opens 6-8 p.m. Fri., May 6. Continues through July 9.
Kevin is not one, but many. He exists in the gallery's crawlspace, an assemblage of objects and artifacts that prove someone was there. Kevin is as real as all the Twitter bots and online lurkers, a shadowy presence you can see proof of but never meet face-to-face. Brandon Engstrom, however, is real, a Los Angeles-based artist who discovered he had unwanted collaborators. Engstrom had a series of female buttocks made from candy that he was storing in an apartment. At night the rats consumed them, which he only discovered when he set up cameras in an effort to find out what was destroying his work. The resulting documentary shows the rats gobbling up the butts; it’s part Tina Belcher fantasy piece made real and part commentary on consumerism at its most ravenous.
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